Wife and I moved to our first single family home about 6 weeks ago. I decided I wanted a vegetable garden. Read alot, did some planning, and got to tilling.
Tilling took forever. Super-thick grass, deep roots, clay-y soil. Loosened soil with composted manure.
Planted onions, lettuce, tomatoes, pepers, hot peppers, cantelope, eggplant, and squash. Beans to come.
Anyways, dug a hole for each plant much bigger than the plant, loosened soli more, added handful of Chesapeake Blue, which is an awesome mix of composted crab shells/guts/remains ... and planted. Temps dipped into the mid 40's a few nights during the 1st few days (quite unexpectedly I might add). Then, last weekend we got about 3" of rain in 2 days.
So I have a few "things" going on I wanted to ask about.
1) 2 of my hot pepper plants have their leaves sorta curled up, almost where one side touches the other.
2) my tomatoes (which I planted half underground).... the bottom row of leaves on a few of them have turned yellow. its not really spotty. more like a solid, lighter-colored yellow.... I can't figure out if it needs more nitrogen/fertilizer, or less water? or who knows what?
3) something is eating my cantelope & pepper leaves, and I have no idea what it is. I've looked for the little buggers, but cannot find anything besides ants in random spots throughout the garden (I assume ants are a friendly bug)
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mbuckleman
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opabinia51
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mbuckleman
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Well, the tomatoes are looking pretty good... but 1 cucumber plant is down for the count, and it looks like both cantelopes aren't far behind. They just wilted up and died. We've had a LOT of rain the last week... but I am not sure why they died. The only other symptom I noticed was some of the leaves were white-ish...
any ideas folks?
any ideas folks?
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mbuckleman
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Sorry about your problems.
I've noticed in the past getting cucumbers and melons started in the garden can be quite tricky if the weather isn't cooperating. If found that young cukes and melons really don't like heavy rainfall when they are in the young , just planted, not yet spreading well stage. A heavy rain, or not enough water, can seriously set them back when they are so small and vulnerable. As you've noticed, both vines are pretty succeptible to lots of different bacterial and fungus problems - heavy rainfall really causes these problems to bloom. The cantelope in particular can be really finicky about its watering demands when young : at least the ones in my garden have given me the most problems of all my plants, given the heavy spring rainfall we usually get. I have begun planting mine later in the year to avoid these problems; it gets pretty dry in June down here - and sometimes they [or the weather] still won't cooperate.
Yours might spring back given several clear days and lots of sunlight.
I've noticed in the past getting cucumbers and melons started in the garden can be quite tricky if the weather isn't cooperating. If found that young cukes and melons really don't like heavy rainfall when they are in the young , just planted, not yet spreading well stage. A heavy rain, or not enough water, can seriously set them back when they are so small and vulnerable. As you've noticed, both vines are pretty succeptible to lots of different bacterial and fungus problems - heavy rainfall really causes these problems to bloom. The cantelope in particular can be really finicky about its watering demands when young : at least the ones in my garden have given me the most problems of all my plants, given the heavy spring rainfall we usually get. I have begun planting mine later in the year to avoid these problems; it gets pretty dry in June down here - and sometimes they [or the weather] still won't cooperate.
Yours might spring back given several clear days and lots of sunlight.
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mbuckleman
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mbuckleman
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SInce you live in Maryland, I would send my question to a very helpful site run by the university of aryland: https://www.hgic.umd.edu/
I ask them all kinds of things and they are great about answering.
I have had cucumber beetles, and they have killed some of my squash and cucumber in the past with the bacterial wilt. However, I have pulled up the dead plants and replanted (started the plants in flats again) in the same spots and the new ones are okay, so you don't need to change the soil I don't think.
I am pasting the info on Bacterial Wilt below. BTW, I tried NEEM when I first saw the cucumber beetles... and it didn't really help much. So.. Organic Gardening Gods forgive me -- I used Sevin. That seems to work.
Bacterial wilt is a serious disease of cucurbits that is transmitted principally by striped cucumber beetle feeding. Spotted cucumber beetles, however, are also capable of transmitting bacterial wilt. This disease is most common in cucumber and muskmelon, although summer squash may also become infected. Plants are particularly vulnerable between seedling emergence and the bloom stage. The first symptoms are wilting of individual leaves followed by wilting of individual stems and then of entire plants. Wilted vines may recover at night (regain their turgor) but wilt again the next day. Infected vines die in 7-14 days. Wilted plants should be pulled up and composted.
To test for the disease cut a wilted stem , press the side of a knife to the exposed surface and draw it away. If the plant is infected with bacterial wilt disease you may notice white strands of bacterial ooze. You can also immerse a piece of wilted stem in room temperature water and look for a milky discoloration of the water caused by the bacteria. The bacteria overwinters in adult cucumber beetles hibernating around the garden.
Management: Controlling cucumber beetles early in the season from seedling emergence or transplanting is critical in minimizing the risk of infection. It only takes one cucumber beetle to infect an entire plant. Here are some management techniques:
Grow 'County Fair', a cucumber cultivar with genetic resistance to bacterial wilt. Select varieties resistant to cucumber beetle feeding (they have lower levels of the attractant compound cucurbitacin)- 'Gemini', 'Little Leaf-19', 'Saladin'.
Cover seedlings with a floating row cover and only remove it during bloom to allow for insect cross-pollination.
When the first beetles are observed, spray with a registered insecticide. Neem, pyrethrum, and rotenone are botanical insecticides used by organic gardeners. They are derived from plants.
Remove weeds and debris around the garden at the end of the season.
I ask them all kinds of things and they are great about answering.
I have had cucumber beetles, and they have killed some of my squash and cucumber in the past with the bacterial wilt. However, I have pulled up the dead plants and replanted (started the plants in flats again) in the same spots and the new ones are okay, so you don't need to change the soil I don't think.
I am pasting the info on Bacterial Wilt below. BTW, I tried NEEM when I first saw the cucumber beetles... and it didn't really help much. So.. Organic Gardening Gods forgive me -- I used Sevin. That seems to work.
Bacterial wilt is a serious disease of cucurbits that is transmitted principally by striped cucumber beetle feeding. Spotted cucumber beetles, however, are also capable of transmitting bacterial wilt. This disease is most common in cucumber and muskmelon, although summer squash may also become infected. Plants are particularly vulnerable between seedling emergence and the bloom stage. The first symptoms are wilting of individual leaves followed by wilting of individual stems and then of entire plants. Wilted vines may recover at night (regain their turgor) but wilt again the next day. Infected vines die in 7-14 days. Wilted plants should be pulled up and composted.
To test for the disease cut a wilted stem , press the side of a knife to the exposed surface and draw it away. If the plant is infected with bacterial wilt disease you may notice white strands of bacterial ooze. You can also immerse a piece of wilted stem in room temperature water and look for a milky discoloration of the water caused by the bacteria. The bacteria overwinters in adult cucumber beetles hibernating around the garden.
Management: Controlling cucumber beetles early in the season from seedling emergence or transplanting is critical in minimizing the risk of infection. It only takes one cucumber beetle to infect an entire plant. Here are some management techniques:
Grow 'County Fair', a cucumber cultivar with genetic resistance to bacterial wilt. Select varieties resistant to cucumber beetle feeding (they have lower levels of the attractant compound cucurbitacin)- 'Gemini', 'Little Leaf-19', 'Saladin'.
Cover seedlings with a floating row cover and only remove it during bloom to allow for insect cross-pollination.
When the first beetles are observed, spray with a registered insecticide. Neem, pyrethrum, and rotenone are botanical insecticides used by organic gardeners. They are derived from plants.
Remove weeds and debris around the garden at the end of the season.